Ownership
by ScarQueen
Summary: Fic challenge prompt, 'That's a first,' found on Lady Luce's challeng forum. One shot on our fav man of the year, Dante.


**Quick Author's Notage:**

Meh…what has it been…a year? Geez… That being said this is a challenge fic with the challenge prompt as follows: 'That's a first.' from Lady Luce's forum. So…that's the prompt and this is what my brain made after several months. I reserve the right to repost this (with edits) after the challenge ends. (It may make its way to the 'When We Where Gods' one-shots, who knows?) That being said, Capcom game designers, I really do love you, I understand you own DMC franchise and please for the love of god don't sue… … …and could you maybe call off the sniper monkies? M'kay, m'kay. Enjoy!

**Ownership-Dante**

He had been painted over so much with illusions and expectations that his skin felt like withered orange skin peels. Some times he half believed he could feel the cells of his body dying with each breath disappointed breath. He sighed, the dusty afternoon stirring at the breeze of his breath, glinting minutely off the meager sunlight. Pure gold filtered into the office, illuminating the flaws and worn down rustic ease of the place. The wooden floor had been smoothed not so much by care as by carelessness. The many pairs of shoes had scuffed away layers and layers of uneven plywood to give the floor a honeyed smoothness no varnish could match.

Warily he clenched the hand resting on his thigh, feeling the minor joints in his fingers crack and give under the motion. Amazingly the place was empty for a late summer afternoon. No one had come in to see the legendary son of the legendary dark knight and savior of humanity. Not for an hour. Not that he minded.

Paradoxly, the slow stillness of the afternoon, the immobility of the slow creeping rectangles of light across the dirty floor, breathed of shade of freshness into him. Only in the stillness of nothingness, when no soul was about and demon had yet to crack open an eye lid in the budding evening, was he truly free to be himself. The self that only his twin could ever attest to, were it possible to describe that self with simple human words.

All day long in the fast bustling of the dawn and midday he posed for his public, fans and enemies alike. They painted him over with coats of their own beliefs. Ways they believed he should be, should act. To them, he loved as much as he hated, and it was always with the fiery intensity comparable only to the sun. He loved woman, many woman, or loved only a single woman. And they always pined for him because he made it a rule to always leave satisfied to the point of opulence and greed, he left them content yet always wanting more. To other he loved in a different way, he loved men, many men. He fought to protect them, man and woman alike. And they would always irrevocably bring out the humanity in them. To some, he loved his brother, in every sense of the word. Yet for others, he loved no one, if that was preferred. He was even as cruel and as lost as some of the monsters he hunted at night.

During the day, performing for the public, he was caught in an endless fun house. A house of mirrors that showed different angles and visions. Some of them sickened him, others merrily made him wary, yet others…others…

Briefly he closed his eyes against the thought, letting his head fall back against the chair back. The joints of his neck popped, like a mini earthquake easing away some of the stress. How many times had he sat in this exact position with his feet propped carelessly upon the table top? Or spread out like butter across the worn sofa with one rock band or another blaring on the speakers? He sighed, one gloved hand going to his head and running though his hair before falling limply to his side. Even with his eyes closed he could tell you, with perfect detail, the layout of the room. He could tell you there were two beer bottles inside of the bass drums in the corner of the room. He could tell you how they got there and exactly how long they'd been there. He could tell you eight ball of the pool table was missing and could be found on his desk next to his mother's picture. He could tell you how many times old furniture had been thrown out only to be replaced with 'new' replicas of the old stuff. This was Hollywood baby, they had to sell an image.

Inspiring hope for the masses…did it ever really accomplish anything? Freedom wasn't free, as the family curse and motto seemed to go. And how stifling did the whiners in Hollywood find it? They came and went, as they were blessed with 100 proof human blood. Demonic blood, however, was not so forgiving. He sat in this chair, watching as other came and went, rose to glory and justice and enlightenment. He was as unmoving as the pyramids or stone hedge in these still late afternoons. And with his ass glued to his chair via contract, he may have been made of stone anyways.

Some called him sell out, some called him mainstream, some just dropped to their knees in hero worship. Whatever. The only time he left his 'shop' was when there were demons to kill. Each performance had its own set of tickets. Each 'demon slaying' always ended the same way: the crowd cheered, tickets for the next show sold out, he was paid his hefty fee, and all three parties went their separate ways. Sell out. Right. There were tours of hell. You could see the spot his old man ate it at. You could see the spots where his brother ate it. You could visit his mother's grave, for a fee of course. Sell out? Groaning he rolled shoulders, before letting his feet slide from the desk top onto the floor. They hit the plywood with a hollow thumping sound that startled itself in the quiet evening of the place.

Selling out implied that a self made entity became part of a greater organism. He had never been a self-made entity. The company had always been in the shadows. Always. Capcom owned him, his memories, his shop. His father's sword. Everything. That was the benefit of genetic cloning. The grave site was a falsetto as well. The tours to hell…well they had to make deals to get the money somehow right?

There were tons of his brethren out there, enchained to masses as he was. After a while it wasn't just his particular dynasty of birth. There were other dynasties. Thousands of thousands of them. Each pumping out their own slaves, night and day, to parade in front of the masses, that nameless three headed dragon that had woken him in a cold sweat when he was a kid. He used to imagine the nameless masses-his adoring, suffocating public-as a cat. He would bury the cat alive. He would decapitate it. He hated that black cat. Sometimes he would go to sleep at night and dream of drowning the cat named 'Adoring Public' before drawing and quartering. Sometimes-even more rarely-he would wake up with healing scratches and blood on his bed sheets. They said all serial killers started small, it was just a stroke of genius and luck that it had been pre-determined that he would murder his other half.

Rising to his feet, he eyed the now all but set sun. The demon inside was stirring, taking small shuddering breathes and writhing within his skin like a paper bag. There was another 'slaying' to perform tonight at ten. Another little kitten he would put his time and energy and extensive imagination into. Vergil was only dead because he really had been the stronger of the two of them. Vergil, the proud, the one who refused to submit. The one who murdered not only the cat but the one who had owned it as well. Moths were gathering to the dim lights of 'his place'. The perfect kind of bait for something bigger. Something with claws that would put up a fight. Capcom may have owned him, he may have been expendable to the dynasty, but it was _so_ easy. Shrugging off that mask he wore, writhing out of the dried up, beaten husk of a image. He was fierce, he was bold, he was reckless with desperation that matched only his determination. He was Dante, son of the legendary dark knight and a goddamn trademark legend in his own right. Let them come. Black claws glittered like obsidian in the dim light of his domain.

_Here, kitty kitty kitty. _


End file.
